


Twitchy Witchy Boy

by RagingLamb



Category: Coraline (2009), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Horror, Button Eyes (Coraline), Canon-Typical Creepiness (Coraline), Child Abuse, Evil Albus Dumbledore, Gen, Happy Ending, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape Friendship, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Mentioned James Potter, Mentioned Lily Evans Potter, References to Coraline, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27822613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RagingLamb/pseuds/RagingLamb
Summary: Coraline AUPrivet Drive is the worst. The neighbors are weird. A cat’s got Tom’s tongue. And Harry just wants to go home with his gay godfathers.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle, Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Harry Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	1. Ch 1: One Painfully Blue Boy

Harry was sat in the passenger seat of some brand-new luxury car owned by the undersecretary of the children’s affairs department, one Dolores Umbridge. Dolores Umbridge had been a rather dreadful sight when Harry had first met her, and every time since; the woman was, quite honestly, a pink clad nightmare with a toadish appearance. She was short with the children she worked with and overall unpleasant to be around.

Harry was sat in the car next to this very unpleasant person because he had been struck by the misfortune of his parents dying in a dreadful car crash which had left him with a scar across his forehead, spidering out like lightning.

Because of this, as well as legal troubles keeping his godfathers from taking custody right away, Harry was on his was to Number 4 Privet Drive. Number 4 Privet Drive was home to Harry’s aunt, uncle, and cousin, who had not spoken to Harry’s parents since he was very young (not to say that Harry was not very young as he sat in the car with Dolores, though this should serve to show just how long it had been since Harry had had any contact with the residents of Number 4. All Harry knew about the people was that the falling out that had occurred at a family reunion when he was still a chubby faced toddler (rather than a chubby faced eleven-year-old) had been a nasty affair.

While Dolores pulled his meager belongings out of the trunk of her car, Harry stared at Number 4 Privet Drive and was filled with a fresh wave of grief. He missed his parents terribly and he missed his cozy home in Godric’s Hollow with his bedroom that had glow in the dark stars scattered across the ceiling. And he missed his godfathers, Sirius and Remus. They’d promised him, before Umbridge had taken him away, that they would be back for him as soon as they could, that they’d bring him home.

Harry was a little too young to fully understand the politics involved and the uphill battle that his godfathers were facing; the why of him not being in the loving care of his godfathers eluded him. He wanted nothing more than to be curled up on the couch with them, hearing stories about their school shenanigans.

But that wasn’t how things were. He was stood in front of an inhumanly neat house, staring at precisely trimmed rose bushes in a neighborhood he’d never stepped foot in before everything in his life turned upside down.

==============================================================================

His Aunt Petunia was thinner than he remembered with an unpleasant twist to her mouth. She looked like she’d been faced with something especially unpleasant but was trying very hard not to show it.

She ushered him in and Umbridge left in her expensive car. The house was quiet and as unnaturally tidy inside as it was on the outside. Dudley and Uncle Vernon were out for the afternoon, Petunia explained, so he could settle in without disturbing them. Petunia was left to supervise him, not that there was much to supervise. Harry hadn’t been able to take much with him before children’s affairs had whisked him away.

But she watched him unpack his suitcase and his backpack, watched him place his folded clothes into the dresser and stow his bags under the bed. When he was done, she looked him up and down, and she didn’t look pleased with what she saw.

“You’ll be expected to earn your keep while you’re here, and I won’t have you infecting my sweet Dudley’s mind with the filth your parents raised you around.”

Harry was just perfectly fine with having to do chores around the house, he’d done chores for his parents too, but he didn’t know what his aunt meant by “filth.” It wouldn’t be long until he did.

Harry found out very quickly that when Petunia said he’d “earn his keep” that what she meant was that he’d be keeping the house completely maintained. And when he failed to meet her or Vernon’s standards, he was sent to bed without dinner.

Speaking of Vernon, Harry hated the man. Simple as that. Vernon was quick to anger, and when he got angry, which happened frequently, he turned a deep purple and tended to shout at the object of his anger. And Harry angered the man by simply existing.

Harry hated Dudley too because Dudley was just as unpleasant as his parents and spoiled rotten to boot. He and his friends made a game of tormenting Harry, chasing after and pummeling him whenever they got the chance.

Harry wasn’t overly fond of the neighbors to either side of Number 4 Privet Drive either because to put it plainly, they were old and strange. Aunt Petunia claimed the women living in Number 3 were engaging in “filth” and doing drugs and Harry wasn’t sure that he could dispute her claims when Miss. Trelawney and Mrs. Figg were so . . . off. Meanwhile, Slughorn in Number 5 had a ludicrously large collection of pictures cluttering every surface in his home, his Great Potentials, he said of the people in the photos.

Unsurprisingly, Harry spent whatever time he could away from Number 4 Privet Drive to avoid his relatives. He found himself hiding out in the back yard of a long-abandoned house just two lots down. That’s where he met Luna.

She’d just walked up to him wearing a pair of radish earrings, feather shaped sunglasses, and a bottlecap necklace and told him his head was chock full of something called “nargles.” Luna lived in a house on the very edge of the cul-de-sac. She was the most confusing person that Harry had ever met and he was entirely fond of her. Luna was a bright spot in the misery of Harry’s existence at Privet Drive even if she was a bit odd. Even if her cat seemed to glare at him.

Oh yes, the cat. A fluffy black furball with dark blue eyes and a nasty temper. The pompous little thing liked to spit and hiss at Harry whenever Luna wasn’t paying attention, but Harry let her know and she’s just smile dreamily and say, “Oh yes, Tom is rather protective.”

==============================================================================

One day Luna presented Harry with a plush phoenix. “I found it while I was looking for the Crumple-horned Snorkack, I thought you might like it.”

And he did like it. It was wonderfully soft with two little black buttons for eyes.

“I think his name is Fawkes,” Luna said, stroking a finger over a plush wing.

Harry set Fawkes up on his bed and would talk to hm when he couldn’t sleep, complaining about the Dursleys and about how he missed his godfathers, how he just wanted to go home.

==============================================================================

One day, Vernon’s sister, Marge, came to Privet Drive. Like all of the Dursleys, she was horribly unpleasant and would constantly pick at Harry. Nothing was off limits, from his appearance to his work ethic, not even his parents.

Yes, Marge had _opinions_ about Harry’s dead parents. And she didn’t hesitate to voice them unprompted.

This is what caused Harry to get thrown into the cupboard under the stairs.

At dinner that night, Marge had drunk a bit too much port and was, once again picking at Harry. “He really is a waste of space, and so ungrateful for being brought into your home. I certainly wouldn’t have taken him in, let the foster system straighten him out, I’d say.”

Harry focused on slowly eating his dinner, so he didn’t react to Marge’s words.

She went on, “If only his parents had had the good sense to appoint good, normal guardians for the brat, instead of those _homos_ , then he needn’t have darkened your door. How could they have associated with _filth_ like that?”

And poor Harry, he finally understood what Aunt Petunia had meant about filth, she meant his godfathers who loved him so. Who loved each other and always would.

“My godfathers are not filth!” He shouted, slamming his hands onto the table.

Marge burst out laughing, “Of course, they are you stupid boy! They’re deviant sinners! They’re the very definition of filth!”

“You’re the filthy one!” Harry shot back and that was too far.

Suddenly, Vernon’s hand was fisted in his hair, yanking him away from the table. “How dare you talk to my sister like that, you little brat!”

He dragged Harry out of the dining room and into the hall. Vernon yanked open the door to the cupboard under the stairs with his free hand and threw Harry in. Before he slammed the door shut, Harry could see that his uncle’s face was that awful purple color. The door locked and Harry was alone in the dark, with only the spiders in the corners for company.

Angry tears burned in Harry’s eyes, but he refused to let out the sobs building in his chest.

A few hours later, he could hear Marge leaving and the Dursleys going about clearing the table and preparing for bed. Dudley and Vernon both made sure to stomp all the way up the stairs.

They didn’t let him out.


	2. Ch 2: I Think You Are So Nice

Harry woke up to the cupboard door creaking open.

Harry was reasonably sure that the cupboard under the stairs didn’t have a mirror hung across from it, certainly not one elaborate to near gaudiness. So, naturally when Harry crawled out of the cupboard to find just that he stood to have a look at it, wondering if he was dreaming.

For a moment, the mirror was nothing special, not any different than anything else that existed outside of Number 4. Then he was looking into his mother’s kind eyes, seeing his father’s smile. And more, it wasn’t some vague slippery memory. They were there in the mirror, standing with him and smiling.

Harry whipped his head around, but they were nowhere in sight.

“A shame, isn’t it, to see one’s truest desire within reach and not be able to take it?”

Harry startled, very nearly jumping out of his skin, and turned once again to see an old man with a long silver beard and strange colorful robes coming down the stairs towards him. He was smiling a gentle, amused sort of smile that Harry found he quite liked.

“Sorry to scare you, my boy. It seems that even after all these years I’m still incapable of announcing myself without startling people.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,” The man said, cocking his head to the side, “and you’re Harry, correct?”

For a moment Harry could only stare. When Dumbledore had cocked his head, Harry noticed the man’s eyes or rather, the two pale blue buttons where his eyes should have been.

The man kept smiling, and eventually Harry found his voice again, “Y-yes, I’m Harry, Harry Potter.” He stuck his hand out to shake and Dumbledore did. Somehow Harry thought that his hand felt . . . off. But he quickly forgot about it as Dumbledore guided him away from the hallway and the mirror.

“I expect you’re hungry, Harry. Let’s have some supper.”

The kitchen was in the same place as the original Number 4 Privet Drive, but it was so much grander and more lived in. Harry rather liked the vibrancy that the original Number 4 lacked because of the Dursleys dull sense for interior decorating. Petunia was too afraid of being gaudy to allow for there to be anything fun or exciting about her home, but this Other Privet Drive was eclectically extravagant and all the better for it, in Harry’s humble opinion.

And then there was the table which was laden with a veritable feast. Roast chicken and dinner rolls, a massive bowl of mashed potatoes. Harry’s mouth began to water at the sight and as soon as Dumbledore gestured to the table in invitation, Harry sat down and dug in.

==============================================================================

Dumbledore’s voice broke Harry out of his post-meal stupor.

“Would you like to hear about your mother, Harry?”

Harry’s head shot up from where it had been dipping towards his chest as he’d been dozing off. “My mother?”

“Oh yes, she and your aunt grew up in Privet Drive. If I recall, she was friends with a boy named Severus who lived two houses down. I wonder what happened to him.” Dumbledore smiled and shook his head.

“Your mother did have such lovely eyes, shame I never got to meet her,” Dumbledore sighed, “Did you know? Yours are just like hers.”

Of course, Harry knew, he’d only been hearing it all his life. _“Just like your father, but your mother’s eyes.”_

“All things can be righted if one is patient enough, my boy. All dreams can be realized. Now off to bed.”

==============================================================================

Harry woke up in the cramped cupboard in the normal Privet Drive. It was raining outside. And his relatives were going into town to buy Dudley’s school uniform. They weren’t about to leave him home alone, though, and Harry didn’t dare suggest they leave him with Luna and her father. So, once the Dursleys released Harry from the cupboard, they dropped him off with Horace Slughorn for the day.

Slughorn’s house was cramped and cluttered in a way that made Harry anxious. He very much felt like all the pictures were staring at him. But he noticed one picture in particular, of a young girl with red hair standing next to a boy who was doing his best to smile for the camera.

“Ah, I see you’ve found your mother and Severus in my collection. Those two were among the brightest students I ever taught before my retirement, such a shame they were both lost so young.”

Harry stared at the boy in picture, _what happened to you_?

“What-what happened to him?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, Severus. I hate to say that I don’t know for sure, Harry. He disappeared one day without a trace. His mother died of heartbreak.”

==============================================================================

Slughorn gave him the picture of his mother and her friend, stating that he was sure “It means more to you than to me, my dear boy,” and Harry was quite happy to have it. She looked so happy in the picture.

Petunia frowned when she picked him up and saw the picture, but she didn’t say anything about it, which Harry was grateful for. He placed it on the bedside table and put Fawkes next to it, so he could lean against the frame.

==============================================================================

That night, Harry woke up to a skittering sound and saw a large spider crawling out the door to his room. For some reason, he felt compelled to follow it, and so he did. The spider tip-tapped down the stairs and into the hall and finally, under the door of the cupboard. Harry opened the door to find a glowing portal where the dank interior of the cupboard should have been.

When he crawled through it, he ended up coming out an identical door into a familiar hallway. A smile lit up his features as he ran into the kitchen where Dumbledore was sitting with a small bowl of lemon drops.

“I think you should visit the neighbors, they’re so eager to meet you, my boy. Tonight, I think it should be my dear friend in Number 5.”

“Mr. Slughorn?” Harry asked, recalling his day at the old man’s house.

Dumbledore’s buttons shined, “The better Horace, but yes. He has quite the collection in his home.”

Where Slughorn’s house was musty and cluttered, Other Slughorn’s home was beautiful, clean, and grand, with an open floor plan. And his kitchen was massive, looking like the kitchen in a cooking show when he let Harry in. The man himself, was similarly changed, less tired looking than the original Slughorn with two big, black buttons for eyes.

Slughorn put on a show for Harry that was all smoke and fire and concoctions bubbling out of containers. Harry was entranced by the sight. It was wonderfully exciting. And by the end of the night, he was stained a million hues head to toe and smiling so hard it hurt.

Before he left Other Slughorn pulled him into a side room, where he had some pictures like the collection of his counterpart.

“I was always so disappointed that I never got to meet your mother in person, Harry.” Said Not-Slughorn regretfully.

Not-Slughorn’s button eyes didn’t have pupils to show it, but Harry was certain they were on the picture of his mother and Severus Snape when they were children. His eyes found it as well and he couldn’t help but wonder about the boy in the photograph who smiled like he was right on the verge of accepting that he could be happy in the first place.

When he got back to the Other Number 4, Dumbledore waved his hands and Harry was clean enough to get to bed, even though he protested. He wanted to stay up and see the rest of the wonders of the Other world.

==============================================================================

Harry was thoroughly disappointed to wake up in his bed back at the painfully normal Number 4 Privet Drive. The memory of the colors and sounds of the night before were all the more vibrant against the pale beige walls.

He sighed and got ready to face the day.

Turned out the Dursleys were going out again to celebrate Dudley’s birthday and they didn’t want Harry around to ruin it, so he would be spending the day with the residents of Number 3 Privet Drive: Miss. Trelawney and Mrs. Figg.

Their home was also cluttered, but in a different way than Slughorn’s. No, Number 3 was full to the brim with weird witchy paraphernalia and the scent of stale, over-steeped tea. Harry didn’t see any evidence of drugs, however, so he didn’t mind all that much. Besides, they were still far better than the Dursleys as far as he was concerned. And Harry found the way they doted on each other as they went about their day to be rather sweet.

It was a little uncomfortable when Trelawney demanded to read his tea leaves and then declared he was in mortal danger. She pressed a smooth stone with a circular hole through it into his hand and wrapped his fingers around it.

“A hag stone,” she explained, “It’ll help you see what you need, child.”

He put the stone in his pocket and thanked her to be polite.

That night, Harry waited until his relatives were asleep to sneak down to the cupboard; he wanted to see more.

And see more, he did. That night he went to the Other Number 3 and was invited to watch Other Figg and Other Trelawney’s guinea pigs play a human sized piano and drum set by running and jumping around them while Other Trelawney played a kind of flute that Harry had never seen before. It was spectacular.

On his way back from Number 3, Harry nearly tripped over a very familiar, fluffy black cat. The cat glared up at him.

“Are you . . . Luna’s cat?”

He was startled when he got an actual response.

“I am Tom Riddle,” said the cat

“Okay, but are you Luna’s cat?”

Tom’s ears flattened to his head, “Yes, I suppose if you choose to ignore my autonomy that you could say that I am Luna’s cat, though I wasn’t always.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” Tom drawled, stretching out to sink his claws into the dirt, “When I was a boy,” he squinted up at Harry, “Not too much older that you, I lived in Number 4 Privet Drive. It used to be an orphanage, you know, about fifty years back. Anyway, I found myself locked in that cupboard, same as you, and I found this place, too. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? A dream come true, everything you could ever want, for the most part, right in this little neighborhood for you to play in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll see, Harry, this place isn’t all it seems at first glance. I’d recommend you stay away if you know what’s good for you.”

Suffice to say, Harry did not, in fact, know what was good for him. So, he stuck his chin up and walked right into Number 4 Privet Drive while the cat slunk back out of sight. He walked straight into the dining room where Dumbledore sat with a small box un front of him, which he pushed over to Harry once he sat down.

“I think it’s time I give you these, so you can stay as long as you want.”

Harry began tearing into the box, “I can st-,” he stopped short when he saw what was in the box. Two emerald green buttons. And a needle.

“Yes, Harry, you can stay if you do this one little thing for me. You see, this place runs on a special brand of magic and doing this will release enough to last another fifty years, at least. You are so full of magic, just like your mother.”

Harry shoved the box back across the table to Dumbledore, “I’m not sewing buttons into my eyes!”

Dumbledore caught the box and came around the table with it, “Ah, but we need a yes, if you’re to stay here.”

“I need to sleep on this!” Harry blurted, abruptly standing from the table.

Dumbledore’s smile slipped for a moment, just a moment, but then he relaxed and took Harry by the shoulders. “Yes, I think that would be wise, dear boy.”

He guided Harry up the stairs to his room and Harry slammed the door shut and shoved the dresser in front of it.

“Where are your buttons, Harry?” called the moving images of his mother and her childhood friend where they sat on the bedside table. Harry grabbed the frame and slammed the picture face down so that the noise was muffled. He buried himself in the blankets and tossed and turned, wishing to fall asleep and wake up in the normal Privet Drive.


	3. Ch 3: Little Spies and Button Eyes

He woke up to a lovingly decorated bedroom with a dresser shoved in front of the door and a picture face down on the side table. Harry screamed into his pillow before slamming it down on the bed. Fine, the Other World didn’t want to put him back, he’d just crawl out.

So, Harry pushed the dresser out of the way of the door and tip-toed down the stairs to the hallway where the cupboard was. He crouched down and grasped the doorknob and * _click*_. The door was locked.

Sharp fingers dug into his shoulders and he flinched, “Going somewhere, Harry?”

Dumbledore pulled him up off the floor and turned him to face him. Dumbledore looked . . . different. Bad. His face had fine cracks running through it like porcelain, he was unnaturally thin, and his right hand, which was still digging into Harry’s shoulder, was black and withered.

When he spoke, his words and his lips were out of sync, like a poorly edited video. “I think that you need to think harder about what is best for everyone, Harry.”

And suddenly, Harry was pushed back into— _through_ the mirror across from the cupboard, He was sitting in a dark, damp little room with a lumpy old bed shoved into one corner.

Harry got up and started pounding and kicking the wall, wanting nothing more than to get out, but it was hopeless. He wasn’t getting out until Dumbledore wanted him out. He slumped back down to the ground and began to cry. He wanted to go home, to Sirius and Remus. He wanted his mom and dad.

“Don’ cry,” said a voice behind him. Harry turned to see two ghostly figures with buttons for eyes. One, a large boy with a pudgy face like he’d just started to lose his baby fat. The other was . . . familiar. Severus Snape, his mom’s friend.

Harry pointed at the boy, “You, you’re Severus Snape. You were my mom—Lily’s friend!”

“Lily? Whatever happened to Lily?” Snape asked

Harry’s head dropped and he sniffled miserably, “She—she died, just a couple of months ago.”

“I should never have gotten into that argument with her, maybe then we wouldn’t be in this mess. At least, I would’ve gotten to see her again.”

“You couldn’t have known, you’re—you were just a kid.”

“I appreciate that. You look just like her, you know.”

Harry had never heard that one before. He was shocked to hear the words fall out of the ghost’s mouth.

He said as much and Severus snorted, “People see what they expect to see; it’s how _he_ gets you.”

No points for guessing who _he_ was. And Harry more than understood; Dumbledore had lured him in with a kind act and promises of a happy little world away from the agonizing loneliness of Privet Drive and he’d fallen for it, just as Snape had some two decades prior and Hagrid before him. Aside from the eyes he seemed a normal harmless grandfather and so each child he tricked would believe.

Harry spent a long time talking to the ghosts in that room, about their lives and their time trapped in the Other World. How Dumbledore had tricked them because they would do anything to be happy.

“You know, you have a chance, Harry,” Hagrid said.

“He’s right,” Severus agreed, “maybe if you can save yourself, you can get our eyes and save us too.”

Then the portal opened back up on the wall and Tom stuck his head through, “What are you waiting for? Hurry up!”

Harry didn’t need to be told twice, he threw himself out the portal and into the hall. He needed to find the key, but first, he needed to get out of the house. So, as quietly as he could, Harry snuck out into the cul-de-sac so he could talk to Tom and figure out a plan.

Tom took the chance to lay out the end of his story for Harry, how he’d sacrificed Hagrid to free himself from Dumbledore, only to find himself trapped in a new voiceless form when outside the Other World.

Dumbledore had cursed him to be a cat and taken his ring, the only thing his mother left him when she’d died, when it had fallen to the floor. He’d escaped out of the cupboard and discovered that he was stuck as a cat, there was nothing he could do to save himself. And with two children missing without a trace, the orphanage closed down and became regular old Number 4 Privet Drive.

Harry remembered the kind giant ghost child in the mirror and scowled at the cat who seemed more angry at being duped than at all remorseful for delivering an innocent boy into the hands of a monster. He certainly didn’t seem to care that Hagrid was still suffering because of the choices he’d made back when he’d been a boy.

But right then wasn’t the time to be self-righteous at a cat, especially not when the cat in question was helping you play a game against some kind of spider man.

Right then, Tom’s pointy little black ears perked up and he shot off into the bushes and returned with a squealing guinea pig in his jaws. He snapped his teeth into the thing’s spine and Harry cried out in horror before he quieted at the sight of sand pouring out of its mouth as it transformed into a large, misshapen rat.

“That little rat was going to raise an alarm for Dumbledore,” the cat explained, licking a paw, and raking it over his ear.

“Oh,” was all Harry could say

==============================================================================

“Now Harry,” Dumbledore said, “I can’t just let you go when you’re all that’s keeping this world running, now can I?”

“Maybe not, but . . .” Harry had to think fast, “What if I win my freedom?”

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, “Oh?”

“Yeah, what if I . . .” his eyes landed on the door leading to the hallway where the cupboard and the mirror were, “What if I find the ghost eyes?”

“That’s too easy for a clever young man like yourself, what else?”

“And . . .” his eyes fell on Tom, sitting tense in the bag at his side, “I’ll find Tom’s ring.”

Tom flinched at his side, began to hiss what sounded like, “no” as Dumbledore’s face cracked into a smile.

“That should prove a sufficient challenge. Good luck my boy.”

“Wait!” Harry shouted, “I want an idea of where to start at least. Surely you can afford to give me that much, can’t you sir?”

Dumbledore tapped his button eye with a finger that glinted strangely, but it was a little too dark for Harry to see what caused it, and told him, “An item you seek is hidden in each house on this street.”

“Oh, and Harry,” Dumbledore said, as Harry was walking out the door, “You have until sunrise to find them all.”

Harry didn’t waste his breath or his time replying, he simply tore out of the Other Number 4 into the cul-de-sac.

Tom hopped out of his bag and growled at him, “You idiot,” he shouted, “You think I haven’t spent the last fifty years trying to get that ring back? You’ve doomed yourself!”

Harry just smiled and scooped Tom back up into his arms, tucking him back into the bag, “You’re smart Tom, but I think you’re missing something essential.”

“And what is that Harry?” Tom asked, his tail lashing around behind him.

“Some famous Potter luck,” he replied with a smile, remembering all the stories of how his dad had gotten out of all kinds of trouble through sheer luck and a little bit of courage.

Tom grumbled but settled into the bag while Harry walked over to Number 3 Privet Drive. The place was eerily silent when they entered, devoid of the life that had been so abundant the last time Harry had visited.

Harry clutched Tom in the bag to his chest as he crept through the entryway and into the living room where the performance had taken place. He looked around and found Other Trelawney and Other Figg sat across from each other, heads bowed under thick veils that obscured their features enough that Harry couldn’t tell them apart. Their hands were pressed together as if in prayer, and between them, on the coffee table, was a pot of lukewarm tea.

Harry realized he had no idea where to start looking. Then Tom shifted in his bag and pressed something into Harry’s leg. He fished out the hag stone that Trelawney had given him what felt like ages ago. _It’ll help you see what you need_. He lifted it to his eye and looked through the hole. The world through the hag stone was monochromatic as he swept his gaze over the room, all except for a little circle of color in the teapot on the table.

He knew what he had to do, but he wasn’t going to like it. He rolled the sleeve of his jumper up to his elbow and plunged his hand into the tepid tea. His hand clamped shut around the orb resting at the bottom. Nothing happened. But as soon as his hand began to lift out of the teapot, holding the ghost eye, the women to either side started shrieking.

“Thief! Thief!” screeched Other Figg.

“Doom! Despair!” cried Trelawney.

Both women went to grasp tight to Harry’s tea-soaked arm, but Tom bit their hands which spilled sand across the table while the women wailed in pain. And then the world started to crackle, with streaks of white racing out from the teapot until all of Number 3 Privet Drive was as monochromatic as it looked through the hag stone. Harry and Tom were the only splashes of color, the only source of movement in the house.

“Thank you, Tom,” Harry panted, wiping his arm off on his jeans.

The orb in his hand was a red ball with a yellow band around the middle. It glowed a cheery red and Hagrid’s voice rang out, “You found me, Harry. Two more to go!”

Number 5 was similarly desolate when Harry arrived, with all of the large windows smashed and broken glass covering the floor. Pictures that moaned as if they were in pain covered every available surface.

“Are you looking for this, my boy?” asked the distorted voice of Other Slughorn as he stepped out of the shadows.

Harry backed up upon seeing the man. The Other Slughorn was a swollen mess, obviously made of the remains of an old, overstuffed armchair. His stuffing was starting to fall out. In his stiffly stuffed hands was a little green orb with glimmering stars painted across the surface.

Harry reached out to take it and the orb sunk into the hand, through a rip in the fabric.

“You really want to go back, Harry? Back to that place where they don’t take care of you? Where you’ve been abandoned? You want that?”

Harry hesitated, just a moment, thinking about Privet Drive, the real Privet Drive where he’d been waiting for so long. But then he remembered Sirius and Remus’ faces, how much he wanted to go home to them. And then he lunged.

Harry grabbed at the arm that had held the orb he needed, and he yanked hard. There was the sound of fabric tearing and cotton stuffing flew everywhere. Then the world turned black and white and still.

Harry tore through the arm made of fabric and stuffing until he found the little green ball dotted with stars. He clutched it tight in his hand and released a rough sob.

“Hold yourself together, Harry. We’re almost done,” Snape’s voice called from the glowing orb.

Harry followed the ghost’s advice, taking a deep breath to steady himself before shoving the eye into his bag with Hagrid’s and Tom.

He turned and marched out of Number 5.

The moon sat, fat and yellow just over the horizon. It was time to find the ring, to release Tom and the ghost children and himself.

“You know he won’t let you go even if you find my ring,” Tom said from where he sat in the bag, guarding the eyes.

“We’ll just have to make him, then,” Harry replied, staring up at Number 4 Privet Drive.

Tom tilted his head and asked, “And how will we do that?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

The whole place seemed to be rotting from the inside out. The wallpaper was peeling in thick strips and the mirror in the hall was smashed to pieces. And there were thick layers of cobwebs everywhere.

Maybe Dumbledore was right about needing Harry’s magic to sustain the place. It didn’t matter though; Dumbledore had hurt so many people just to keep this world together. He didn’t get to hurt Harry too.

Dumbledore looked worse than ever, sat in his high-backed wooden chair in the living room. He seemed to be sinking into it, the same way his button eyes seemed to be sinking into the cracks on his face. The hands were practically skin and bone . . . actually the right one might have been down to the bone; it was hard to tell with how blackened the appendage was.

The man smiled and spread his hands when he saw Harry. “My boy, have you completed the tasks?”

The man was smirking, he thought he already won, but no, it wasn’t over yet.

Harry dug in the bag and pulled out the ghost eyes, stepping forward to show them to Dumbledore who tried to snatch them up and again there was that flash. But Harry pulled them back and stowed them away once more.

He had a sinking feeling that he knew where the ring was, and it wasn’t going to be fun to get.

“We’re not done yet, are we?” Harry asked.

“No,” Dumbledore agreed, “I don’t believe we are. So where is it, Tom’s ring?”

Harry glanced around for a moment, thinking, looking for a way to get out of this, when his eyes caught on the cupboard door. He pointed, “It’s there. Just open it up and look. It’ll be there.”

“Oh really?” Dumbledore asked, walking over on legs that swayed with each step. He reached into one of the cracks in his porcelain face and fished out the key that Harry’s aunt had lost track of the day after he’d been locked in the cupboard. A fat black spider was clinging to the key.

He smiled at Harry and another crack formed at the corner of his lips. He turned the key in the lock in the most dramatic fashion and pulled open the door to reveal the tunnel back to the normal world.

“You’re wrong, Harry. Now, it’s time to do your part and save this place and everyone in it.”

“I won’t!” Harry shouted. He threw himself at the man and wrapped his body around the blackened arm. Dumbledore tried to shake him, but his body moved in a strange way, like it was having trouble coordinating itself. Harry clung on and grabbed hold of the finger that held a silvery ring with a black gem. He grasped it tight and pulled and the blackened bone of a finger snapped clean off. There was no blood, only a sharp scream as the rest of the arm crumbled away to dust and Harry fell to the floor. Dumbledore was wailing, clutching at his shoulder where his arm once was.

It was like he was melting, his robes going slack as spiders spilled out from under them, going in every direction. Then his face fell off, or the mask that was his face, since it didn’t just appear to be porcelain when it shattered against the spider-covered floor.

There was nothing left except shattered porcelain and a pile of dusty purple fabric once the spiders were all gone. Harry might’ve stayed standing there dumbstruck with the finger bone in his hand if the world hadn’t violently shaken as it began to dissolve into white nothingness.

Harry jammed the ring, finger and all, into his bag and grabbed the key as he ducked and ran into the tunnel beyond the door. It was full of dust and cobwebs and Harry was fairly certain it was disappearing behind him, but he didn’t slow down or stop until he burst out the door on the other side. He slammed it closed and locked it as fast as he could.

As soon as it was locked, he jammed the key into his pocket and slumped against the door.

“Just what do you think you’re doing bringing manky old cats into my home?” His Aunt Petunia asked in a low, but sharp voice, obviously trying to avoid waking her husband and son since it seemed to be early morning.

Harry had never been so relieved to be scolded. “Sorry, Aunt Petunia, I’ll take him out right away.”

“See that you do,” she said before spying his dust and cobweb filled mop of hair, “And clean yourself up before the neighbors start to talk.”

So, Harry cleaned himself up in the downstairs bathroom before heading out to meet Luna in the yard of the abandoned house.

Harry told her the whole story while he and Luna stroked Tom’s silky fur. They’d somehow managed to brush out all the dust and spiderwebs that had clung to it and he was purring in appreciation. It was the friendliest Harry had ever seen the cat, but he guessed that was what happened when you went through that kind of situation with someone.

“So, you got Tom’s ring, the one that kept him a cat?” Luna asked.

“Yeah, it’s right here on my finger, I don’t know why he hasn’t changed back yet though.”

“It just needs a good charge,” she replied airily.

When Harry was about to ask what she meant, a familiar car pulled up in front of where they were sitting and Sirius got out of the driver’s side while Remus appeared out of the passenger.

Before either could speak, Harry had gotten up and plowed right into Sirius’ open arms, burying himself in them.

“We’re so sorry you had to wait so long, pup, the legal red tape was awful,” Sirius whispered into his hair as Remus tucked into his side so he could also hold onto Harry.

Harry was crying, he was so happy to see them again, he couldn’t even be embarrassed that Luna and Tom were bearing witness to the display.

When they finally separated, Remus looked at Luna who was smiling at them all while holding Tom in her lap, “And are you a friend of Harry’s?” he asked.

“She’s the best person in all of Privet Drive: Luna Lovegood,” Harry said.

Sirius and Remus both smiled at their boy as he introduced his friend. “Well we’ll have to invite her over sometime.”

“ _Obviously_ , she’s the best person in Privet Drive.”

==============================================================================

Petunia sent Dudley and Vernon out for the day as soon as Remus and Sirius appeared at her door with all the paperwork for them to take custody of Harry. She was glad to be rid of the boy and she told them as much while they worked to pack up Harry’s things as quickly as possible.

“That woman is wretched,” Sirius grumbled while he put Harry’s things into the trunk of the car.

“Truly,” Remus agreed.

Once they were all packed up and just about to leave, Luna ran up with red cheeks and Tom in her arms.

“I think,” she huffed, “He wants to go with you.”

Harry ran a finger over a pointed black ear and looked her in the eye, “But he’s yours.”

She shook her head and placed Tom in his arms, “You’ve been through a lot together.”

“But—,”

“I don’t think you’re going to win here, Harry,” Sirius said, placing a hand on his shoulder, to Luna he said, “We’ll make sure they’re both well taken care of, and we’ll be sure to invite you over sometime soon.”

“Oh, that reminds me, I forgot to tell you, Harry: dad and I are moving out to Godric’s Hollow at the end of the summer.”

“That’s brilliant, Luna!”

==============================================================================

It was a little weird going home to Godric’s Hollow after everything that’d happened, and to be there without his mom and dad, but Harry was still happy to be home with Remus and Sirius.

They sat down to eat dinner as a family that first night back. And they both tucked him in and kissed his forehead before they went to bed. And when Harry fell asleep, he was happy.

Harry dreamt of Snape and Hagrid, awash in gold and beaming bright, finally free of Dumbledore forever. They flew about his room that was full of stars and thanked him for freeing them. They warned him that the danger was over and done for them, truly it was, but if Dumbledore had even a spec of magic left, then he was still a threat. He’d still try to pull someone in to feed on, in the hopes that they had magic.

“Don’t look so sad, Harry,” Hagrid said, cozying up to Harry’s side where he sat in bed.

“Yeah, Potter, you’re still alive, you’ve still got a chance.”

Harry woke up drenched in sweat, clutching at the cupboard key at his neck. He threw his pillow across the room to find the ghost eyes cracked and devoid of color. He shivered and looked over to where Tom was curled up at the foot of his bed, alert and watching.

“I need to hide this key so Dumbledore can never find it,” he said, tossing the key into a spare pillowcase, then he pulled the blackened piece of bone out of his bag and threw that in too. After that he walked out into the back garden and through the gate to the lake beyond. All the while Tom was at his back, following close behind and always alert.

The lake, Harry remembered, was rather deep. He hoped spiders couldn’t swim, or at the very least that Dumbledore and his lot couldn’t.

He found a large rock and placed it in the pillowcase with the key and the finger bone. He tied the corners tight in a double knot before lifting the whole thing and throwing it as far as he could into the lake. He threw it so hard that he fell back onto his bum in the dewy grass.

Harry and Tom returned to the warmth of their home with out incident, safe in the knowledge that the key to the cupboard was at the bottom of a lake dozens of miles away from the door it opened.

==============================================================================

Unbeknownst to them, dozens of miles away, Petunia Dursley was looking for her umbrella. She’d searched all of Number 4 but hadn’t been able to find it. There was only one place it could still be. The cupboard under the stairs.

It was locked tight and she hadn’t seen the key since that wretched boy had left, so she had to call a locksmith to come over and unlock it, the whole time grumbling about what a nuisance her nephew had been.

When the door opened, it was just a cupboard, as it had always been. Though there was a little bird stuffed animal on the floor that she could have sworn had belonged to her nephew.

But isn’t it strange? The Dursleys disappeared after that. And nobody wanted to move in when the neighbors were so strange, and the property had such bad luck. So, eventually the house was demolished, and a tiny community garden flourished in its place.


	4. Ch 4: A Good Charge, A Better Ending

One afternoon while the whole family was sat in the living room, a few weeks after Harry and Tom had come to Godric’s Hollow, Tom’s ring began to glow and hum on Harry’s finger. And then Tom the cat began to glow as well, brighter and brighter, until the other three people in the room had to cover their eyes. Then, when the light faded and they opened their eyes, there was a boy sitting where the cat had been.

  
And then the boy was hugging Harry so tight he thought he might suffocate.

  
Harry remembered how sure Dumbledore had been that his magic could sustain the Other World for several decades to come, how once the ring had been removed from Dumbledore, the monster had crumbled into spiders and dust. He knew then what Luna had meant, a good charge, indeed.

  
Sirius ruined the moment pretty immediately, “What the fuck is going on?”

  
Harry ran a hand up and down Tom’s shaking back, “Well you see . . .” and he launched into the story from start to finish, the same as he had for Luna.

  
“I guess this means we’ll have to get a story made up for children’s services,” Sirius said once Harry was done.

  
“You mean . . . Tom can stay?” Harry asked from where he was still caught in Tom’s grip.

  
Remus smiled fondly at his godson and pushed his hair back from his forehead, “Of course he can stay, sweet boy. Besides, I doubt he’d have it any other way.”

==============================================================================

A few short months later, Luna Lovegood was stood on the little family’s front step looking every bit like she had when she’d met Harry, aside from how she had paint staining her hands and clumped into her hair.

  
When Tom answered the door, she smiled her thousand-watt smile and said, “I see Harry gave you the charge you needed.”

  
Tom smiled back at the girl he’d spent years guarding, thoroughly unsurprised at being recognized, “It seems so.”

  
“Tom, is that Luna? Let her in!” Harry shouted from beyond the door.

  
Tom smiled fondly and did as he was told. And the little patchwork family and their lovely guest had lunch together before they would go over to Lovegoods’ to help them finish moving their furniture in.

  
Tom couldn’t know, but felt certain regardless, that all was finally right in the world. And it was.


End file.
